K'taka IT exports sniff $12 bn mark

TNN|

May 22, 2007, 02.30 AM IST

0Comments

BANGALORE: IT exports from Karnataka in FY07 has taken a small hit, a fall of over 6% in its growth rate when compared with FY06. IT exports for FY07 stood at Rs 48,700 crore ($11.87 bn), recording a growth of 29.52% when compared with FY06.

For FY06, exports stood at Rs 37,600 crore, while the growth was much higher at 36% over the previous year. The IT state, however, maintained its dominance as far as share of the total national pie is concerned, accounting for 37.46%.

The growth has been marginally higher than the tentative estimates of the national growth of IT exports for FY07 at Rs 130,000 crore which is a growth of 28.95%, but neighbouring states like Tamil Nadu (46.6% growth on exports of Rs 20,701 crore) and Andhra Pradesh have put up great performances, even though these are on smaller bases.

According to sources, the reasons for the hit could be saturation, expansion of companies in other cities like Hyderabad, Chennai and NCR, as well as the rupee appreciation.

Mr J Parthasarathy, director, STPI Bangalore, told ET that he expects growth in FY08 to be between 28-30%. A calculation would then peg software exports for the current fiscal at about Rs 63,000 crore. It is also to be mentioned that Karnataka has projected $20 billion in exports and 10 lakh jobs by 2010.

Hardware exports from the state in FY07 stood at Rs 2,950 crore, a growth of 18.95 % over Rs 2,480 crore in FY06. Mr Parthasarathy said, "Total investments during the year in the state amounted to Rs 3,000 crore, with about Rs 500 crore going to tier-II cities.

Some 173 new companies have begun operations in the year taking total number of registered companies to 1,973." He added that 10 companies with revenues of over billion dollars have set up shop in the state. This includes names like Business Objects Software, Northern Operating Services, Brady Corporation, Goodrich Aerospace, Supervalu and AON Specialist.

There are about 4.7 lakh IT/ITeS professionals in Karnataka with an addition of 70,000 people in FY07. As far as tier-II cities are concerned, Mysore has posted 94% growth to touch Rs 760 crore in software exports from Rs 392 crore; Mangalore saw 20% growth from Rs 570 crore to Rs 681.5 crore; and Hubli posted 75% growth to Rs 8.5 crore from Rs 4.9 crore.